Broken Horses
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Broken Horses
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Movie Info

Having left town as a child after the death of his father, young music prodigy, JACOB HECKUM, returns to his desolate hometown after years only to discover that BUDDY, the child-like elder brother he left behind, now works for a notorious drug gang. The gang's ruthless boss has twisted Buddy's simple mind and manipulated him into a killer...asurrogate son who blindly does as he is told. Jacob is unable to convince Buddy to leave his new fraternity. Drowned in guilt for having abandoned him, Jacob realizes the only way to save Buddy is from the inside out. Set in the shadows of the turbulent American-Mexican border Broken Horses is a gritty, epic thriller about bonds of brotherhood, laws of loyalty and the futility of violence.(C) Vinod Chopra Films

Mr. Yelchin's character looks somewhat at a loss about what goes on here, and who can blame him, especially when he visits the former music teacher who has lost his legs in a run-in with the bad guys and now lives in a house warmed by a flaming barrel.

While Chopra attempts to crack the American market with a slice of cinematic apple pie, he holds up a mirror to how Hollywood's tried-and-true narrative of vigilantism connotes who we are, at home and overseas.

This wan crime drama plays like the equivalent of a Hindi novel that's been run through Google Translate. Everything feels rudimentary and slightly awkward, though it's possible to discern how the material might once have been powerful.

[It] has a couple of effective scenes of coiled-up tension and suitably moody chiaroscuro work by cinematographer Tim Stern, but it always feels like a very early draft of the story that eventually became Chopra's professional zenith.

Audience Reviews for Broken Horses

½

Virtually every character is dialled up to near-cartoonish levels. Anton Yelchin's Jacob in the lead role, is conversely so under the radar that he's barely noticeable. The only character in an even remotely realistic middle ground is Maria Valverde's Vittoria, who show up for five minutes at the start and a further ten at the end. The story goes almost completely unexplored, and the trailer gives away entirely to much (that's not an exaggeration, after getting the context of a single scene about a third of the way through, literally the entire rest of the film was spoiled for anyone who has watched the trailer).
But there's a lot to like too. Some cinematography is brilliant, there's a few callbacks I thoroughly enjoyed, a couple of moments reminiscent of (the far superior) Red Hill, and no matter what you put him in, and no matter how over the top his character is written, you can't go past how great Vincent D'Onofrio is.